What would it take?

What would it take for you to feel successful at the end of a day?

What would it take for you to feel like your home was your sanctuary?

What would it take for you to fix your teeth, or see your favorite band play, or land the job of your dreams?

We are prone to pretend to ourselves that what we desire lies at the end of a trail that is so perilously navigated and so resource-hungry that we dare not even imagine what it would entail. So, we resign ourselves to it being impossible before we’ve finished conceiving it.

But between ourselves and what we want is not a wall, not even a hurdle, but a cloud. A smoke screen.

You know how you’re accosted by wafts of cigarette smoke upon exiting the doors of most any European airport? But despite any temporary suffocation you might endure, you persist onwards, knowing that just past that heavy channel of smog lies a fascinating, history and culture-rich land? Sure, you might ponder just how much second-hand damage 30-seconds of inhalation will set your lungs back, but you roll those bags ever forward.

Well, when it comes to our desires, we are like travelers who, having just departed a long haul flight (during which we’ve severely lowered our standards for what’s considered watchable television shows and movies, and consumed small aluminum trays of substances administered with smiles and pawned off as edible), roll up to the sliding airport doors with anticipation and fatigue, only to take a step out, observe the dense fog hanging in the air, and declare the endeavor a no-go. “Forget it, Steve. This isn’t happening. Find us the signs for departures; we’re going home.”

If only we knew that the land of our dreams was a mere number of meters past the crowd of enterprising taxi drivers and their noxious vapors!

If only we had the courage to ask: what would it take for me to get there?

If only we had the confidence to take our curiosities and yearnings seriously enough to be committed to seeing them come to fruition.

When we ask ourselves what transforming our desires into realities would really entail, we realize it really isn’t all that much. Actually, it’s usually quite simple. It isn’t a matter too broad and too abstract to wrap our minds around. The answers are details we know: numbers and time. Actions and choices.

What would it take for you to feel successful at the end of the day?

Would you need to incorporate exercise? More time with your kids? An hour more for responding to emails? And what would it take to make those things possible? Would you need to wake up an hour earlier? Restructure your day? Delegate some tasks to others?

What would it take for your home to feel like your sanctuary?

Would it take new furniture? Would it take a coat of paint? Would it take editing its contents and implementing organizational systems? And what would that take? Making the time to go to the hardware store? To hire an expert?

What would it take for you to fix your teeth, or see your favorite band play, or land the job of your dreams?

How many things do you think you could solve, how many desires do you think you could fulfill by way of a Google search, or sending an email?

The crackling baguettes of Paris are stocked high on the baker’s shelves. The sugar cube houses of the Greek Cyclades are perched pristinely upon hilltops ready for you to explore. The English tea is steeping as we speak. The Ferrari 458 Spiders and Aston Martin DB AR’s and Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 Touring’s are parked on the streets of Monaco waiting to impress you.

All you have to do is get through the smoke.